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Finger hurts around the nail

My left ring finger is very tender and a little swollen on the left side of the finger, just past the last knuckle, so basically along-side the nail. Neither the skin nor the nail seems to be damaged, no cracks, cuts, hangnails, anything like that. This seems to happen to me fairly regularly on both hands, and on different fingers (and different sides of the respective nails). I can't think of anything I might be doing to harm the fingers, so I'm kind of wondering what's going on, what kind of things might cause it, and especially how I can deal with it.

Thanks, H/A.

BTW, I got a message from Obs that equated installing OS X on a PC with car theft, murder and rape. Is he normally like that?

I get the same all the time, but I am a chronic nail biter and hang nail puller...they do go away after a week or so for me too...i've never seen a doctor about it or had any infections...never figured out a way to make them go away either =(

I pulled a hang nail out of my thumb once and got symptoms like you're describing. I'd had that happen before and it always got better / went away within a few days. This one didn't. It persisted for a long time (weeks). My thumb got very swollen and was extremely painful to the touch. Eventually, I suffered through the pain and ripped off more of the nail...

which released the flood gates of pus that lay within. I squeezed it all out, forming a spherical mass easily half the size of my thumbnail. After it was all out, I noticed the skin on on my thumb felt loose because of the empty cavity that had previously been filled. The pain and swelling (obviously) subsided.

Don't let it get to that point. Just go to the doctor, he may be able to recommend something that'll prevent it from happening as often.

Don't bite your nails on the sides. If you have a cracked nail and peel it away from right to left (or left to right) be careful not to take any of the stuff that is generally found under the sides of your nails. Break it off and find clippers to trim it. Otherwise you risk an ingrown.

I've quit smoking, dieted, etc. None of that was shit compared to trying to stop biting my nails. I do it when I think deeply, watch movies or worry a lot. (read: a lot of the time) I'd love to stop doing it but it's to the point where it's almost done unconsciously.

/I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS. It hurt a lot.

I had an ingrown toenail once (broke the nail stubbing my toe, peeled the broken part off) when I was without insurance and I fixed it without going to the doctor.

Please just go to the fucking doctor. I'm posting this as anecdotal information about NOT having insurance/cringe factor. After about 4 weeks the toe was so painful it hurt when anything touched it, even light cloth. Got tweezers, a sharp thing you use to clean under your nails, alcohol & some numzit (used to stop teething pain) and incrementally dug deeper and deeper applying the alcohol and numzit in turns. Finally hit something hard and it was a huge sliver of toenail that had been somehow driven into the flesh of my toe. I pulled it out and it almost immediately stopped hurting like an infection does. (Painful to touch, feels full or skin too stretched, hot, etc) Healed up quickly after that.

I am a nail "ripper" as in I rip off the white tip of the nail pretty regularly.

This happens to me, but usually higher up towards the tip although I have gotten them farther back.

Yes, it is most likely an infection and I bet if you mess with it enough you can see it pop.

If the pain doesn't go away in a normal amount of time, and you have insurance with a low copay, go see a doc.

If not, try buying some disinfectant stuff and getting it towhever the nail is growing into the skin.

PS:
Just for my own information, when this kind of thing happens to me, if I place the offending finger and another up to my lips, I can usually feel a fairly significant temperature difference between the two.

Just for my own information, when this kind of thing happens to me, if I place the offending finger and another up to my lips, I can usually feel a fairly significant temperature difference between the two.

Same here?

Yep.

So I guess shy of performing minor surgery on myself, it doesn't look like there's anything I can do about it except to ignore it and wait for it to go away.

I s'pose we can lock this, then.

wasted pixels on September 2007

BTW, I got a message from Obs that equated installing OS X on a PC with car theft, murder and rape. Is he normally like that?